Authors: Adelaide Bry
est (12 page)
I have a twenty-year-old son with whom I have had terrible communication.
He had been severely depressed and we were always afraid to talk,
to tread on each other. Of course, what we did was to tread on each
other. What you resist is what you get, as they say in
est
. He
took the training and our communication is now terrific.
After the training, I took the Communication Workshop, which really put
everything together for me. it was a spiritual experience. I realized that
I had never communicated In my life. Werner said, "To communicate you
have to have absolute admiration and respect. You can't be a brilliant
therapist without love, admiration, and respect for the patient." I
do love my patients now, regardless of their trips. I experience their
experiences and get fulfillment from my work in a way I never thought
possible.
Work with my patients has changed since I took
est
. A teen-ager
I had been working with for some time, who was hostile, paranoid,
isolated, bitter, and a borderline schizophrenic, was so obnoxious
that I really didn't want him as a patient. He's now become someone
with whom I'm working very well. I can laugh with him now. I can
call him on his tough-guy games. And I've started to work with him to
experience his loneliness. While I used to help patients strengthen
their defense mechanisms, now I have them experience rather than repress
certain patterns and they go away. This same young man, for example,
now force-feeds his depression. [In this context, to "force-feed"
a depression would be to experience it fully instead of trying to get
rid of it by various means.]
A woman patient who had had multiple hospitalizations realized, in the
process of being helped, that she was a psychosomatic cripple. Because of
my
est
training, the seductive-manipulative aspects of her moaning
and complaining became clear to me. When I communicated this to her, she
was able to tell me, "If I face my feelings, I'll die." She had never
gone that far or been that honest before. She became more alive. When
she left the hospital, the staff remarked on how much she had changed.
I see now, also, that there are some patients who don't appreciate and
don't want to experience feelings, who would rather have medication
or electric shock. Even so, I respect them and acknowledge where they
are. And then cut through their games.
I have sent twelve patients from New Orleans to
est
trainings
in New York and San Francisco. I've done that because it works, because
it's therapeutic, regardless of their disclaimers that
est
is not
therapy. The training encourages people to work through and experience
their barriers and get out of the cognitive mind which dominates so much
of our culture.
Out of these twelve patients, three didn't like it -- they thought it
was atrocious, boring, exhausting. All three had had lots of therapy
and were isolated, intellectual people. One week after they were back
in therapy with me each one of them cried for the first time In our
work together. They got in touch with feelings they had been avoiding
for years. Two out of three now acknowledge that they got a lot from
the training. The third still denies it was helpful; he, I observed,
got the most from it. The other nine sound even more enthusiastic than
I do. I find, incidentally, that I communicate better with
est
graduates than with other people.
There is currently some resistance to
est
from other psychiatrists
in New Orleans. They have heard about it from me and are curious. A
colleague who does a group at a hospital where I have individual patients
is amazed at the change in my patients, how they are breaking through
their barriers. A couple of others, though, are antagonistic because
they think Werner is a con artist, or because of his name change.*
that threatens all their years of training. I, too, was scared that last
day of the training. I wondered how I could continue all the stuff I had
learned when it didn't mean anything.
I am convinced
est
offers true transformation. And in an amazingly
short period of time.
6
est
Goes to Prison
into a bank and tell them to hand over the money. I kick myself in
the ass every time I think about it. I know I got more potential and
qualifications than to do something like that. But I was impatient.
I wanted it then.
est
brought me a lot of realizations and I
guess you could call it waking up."
I was in the office of the psychologist of the Federal Correctional
Institution at Lompoc, California, listening to one of the thirteen
convicts who would be talking to me about
est
.
I was there to see for myself what
est
had done for prisoners;
almost every story about Werner Erhard and
est
had mentioned the
prison training. I was there also for a colleague of mine, a psychiatrist
who is head of psychiatric services for the city of Philadelphia. I
would report to him what I had experienced so that he could consider
the value of bringing the training into the city's prison system.
Because of what I
got
from the training about agreements, I was
experiencing some guilt. Neither before nor during my visit did I divulge
that I was writing this book. The letter requesting my visit had come from
my colleague and referred only to that aspect of my investigation which
related to his work. (Later I let the people I had met know about the
book. The prison psychologist kidded me for not being up-front. "Didn't
you get that it would have been O.K. to have walked in here and told
the truth?" I didn't then, but I would now.)
The reason I withheld this information was that I wanted to get the
real story rather than a public relations fabrication. I felt that
admitting the full truth about my visit would prevent me from getting
to their truth.
In
est
terms, my
reasons
were irrelevant. Reasons aren't
real; people make them up to justify what they want to do. What mattered
was whether I was willing to take responsibility (and the consequences)
for what I was doing. I was, which meant that I was prepared to incur
the wrath of the authorities, to get tossed out of the prison, to
suffer the pangs of guilt, and to face whatever else might result from
my half-truth. As I now put this into perspective, it occurs to me that
my experience was exactly what the
est
prison training was all
about: taking responsibility for making and breaking agreements.
I flew to Los Angeles and then boarded a Greyhound bus for the four-hour
ride through rolling cowboy country to the federal prison. The next
morning, after I had spent an anxious night at a nearby motel, a curious
cab driver ("No visiting hours on Thursday, ma'am") deposited me before
an enormously high fence topped with three strands of barbed wire and a
fifty-foot-high glass tower, which were a visitor's welcome. The object
of my journey, a huge gray concrete building, loomed before me from
across a vast empty plain.
Feeling small and vulnerable, I waited with my driver for an acknowledgment
of my presence. It came out of the air, as though from nowhere, with a curt
"What do you want?" I identified myself to the faceless voice and after
a short wait was allowed through the wire fence, whereupon I identified
myself again and was admitted to the reception area.
The intimidating security structures, the bars on every window, the gray
tiled corridors -- all reminded me of every prison movie I had ever seen.
It was both awesome and sobering. If the whole thing smacked of a grade-B
jail tale, the climax to my entrance scene was in the best tradition of
Hollywood slapstick. Shaken after my solo walk across the flat, empty
space between the fence and the building, I asked the receptionist what
I could do with my suitcase. He considered the question seriously before
suggesting, apologetically, that it would be best to lock it up. "We
have a lot of thievery around here," he explained, poker-faced!
Dr. Scott Moss, the mental health coordinator and a charming and
knowledgeable man, soon appeared to escort me to the first of my
appointments. I was grateful for his presence, especially as we moved
through the huge, busy corridor where prisoners and staff walked briskly
about their business. It wasn't until after I cleared the third barrier
that the full import of what I was up to hit me: If, in fact, sixty hours
of
est
training could transform some of the rapists, murderers,
burglars, and other criminals who populated Lompoc, what might that mean
for the society at large? Intrigued by the possibilities but skeptical,
I decided to just stick close to Dr. Moss and keep my ears and eyes open.
I had fortunately arrived in time to listen in on a series of interviews
by two students from San Francisco State University who were doing their
masters theses about
est
at Lompoc.
In the initial encounter, a researcher stated that the investigation was
not related to the prison, that the prisoner's name would not be used,
and that he should feel free to be as honest as he wanted since nothing
would be used for or against him. Each was asked the same questions,
which dealt primarily with what he had experienced from the training.
The first, a good-looking young black (all but two of the prisoners I met
were black), grinned self-consciously when asked what he thought of the
training. "Cool, man, cool. And I
got
that what happened to me
ain't no mistake. I planned it that way."
I could barely believe my ears. A ghetto youth assuming full responsibility
for his life instead of blaming it all on bad housing, vitamin deficiencies,
overcrowded schools, a father who had deserted, no money or jobs or love?
It was exactly what I wanted to hear but I mistrusted it. Too glib,
I thought; he's getting off on his performance.
But as the men came and went, I heard the same theme over and over.
Convicts admitting that they had known what they were getting into and
now accepting the consequences.
From another, a young redhead, "When I run up against a brick wall,
I know that's the way I want it."
Another, a tough-looking six-footer: "What I see now is that I used
my own agreements instead of looking out there at the world. I never
bought anyone else's agreements until I got hit over the head, literally,
with a club. The sky was the limit in my life. Oh, hell, I'm not going
to say I'm perfect now but even here I get along a hell of a lot better
than I used to."
Each had come to the training for a different reason. "I took it because
there wasn't anything else to do," a twenty-three-year-old blond who looked
like a college student explained. "But I really roll with the punches now.
Sure I'll be glad when I get out of here [he had three years left on a
five-year sentence]. But right now I'm paying attention to right now."
The words sounded pat to me but the person speaking was totally real.
Later, others were to say essentia]ly the same thing. If Werner had
accomplished nothing else during the training, this kind of acceptance
alone was worth the whole venture. I was told that most prisoners spent
their lives daydreaming about the distant future, looking to the time
when they would be released. By being in the here and now, and by
accepting that "here" meant three sets of barbed wire, guard towers,
and restricted movement, then they had choices. A former dope dealer
summed it up with a Werner quote: "It's much easier to ride the horse
in the direction he's going."
Some of those interviewed hadn't completed the training. "They had
X-rated movies going that weekend" one confessed with a grin. Another,
who felt Werner "could make a person change their mind about love," said
he got tired of sitting. And another left "because I'm partly satisfied
with what I am." The training is heavy stuff, and I could see that an
X-rated movie was an easy distraction.
The most interesting responses were from men who were knowledgeable
about therapeutic and rehabilitation techniques. They had been involved
in counseling or drug abuse programs and/or group therapy, including
Transactional Analysis. Some of these programs they had experienced
before they were imprisoned or in other prisons; others they had pursued
at Lompoc.
A particularly sharp, articulate graduate told us: "I stood up there and
had the most fantastic thought. Everyone looked so . . . transparent. And
I suddenly realized, 'What am I afraid of? Them?' I was sick that I've
walked around afraid this long. I think about that every time I get into
a conversation and our fronts go up and I can feel the fear between us.
I don't take the initiative yet to try and break down that fear and to see
just how far it would go."
Another observed that the people who don't get anything out of
est
are the same people who don't get anything out of counseling or therapy.
"They just don't want to look at themselves."
When the series of brief interviews was over, I met with Burt Kerish,
Lompoc's competent and gracious clinical psychologist for the last
fifteen years. He had been in the first Lompoc training, conducted
personally by Werner (there have been two trainings so far, attended
by 118 prisoners). Eager to share his experience, Burt told me that
he
got
that people both in and out of the prison found him
intimidating. "And I was not aware of it." Among his life changes since
the
est
training: "I find more aliveness in assisting at
est
than playing at the beach, and I enjoy both."
Burt had asked three
est
graduates to meet with me in an informal
setting to discuss the training in more detail. I was excited about
it. One of the three, I was told, had been convicted of rape and bank
robbery. Another was also a bank robber, and the third was a big-time
dope smuggler. We were sitting around Burt's office, informally, with
no bars, guards, or guns -- none of the props I had expected.
He had been severely depressed and we were always afraid to talk,
to tread on each other. Of course, what we did was to tread on each
other. What you resist is what you get, as they say in
est
. He
took the training and our communication is now terrific.
After the training, I took the Communication Workshop, which really put
everything together for me. it was a spiritual experience. I realized that
I had never communicated In my life. Werner said, "To communicate you
have to have absolute admiration and respect. You can't be a brilliant
therapist without love, admiration, and respect for the patient." I
do love my patients now, regardless of their trips. I experience their
experiences and get fulfillment from my work in a way I never thought
possible.
Work with my patients has changed since I took
est
. A teen-ager
I had been working with for some time, who was hostile, paranoid,
isolated, bitter, and a borderline schizophrenic, was so obnoxious
that I really didn't want him as a patient. He's now become someone
with whom I'm working very well. I can laugh with him now. I can
call him on his tough-guy games. And I've started to work with him to
experience his loneliness. While I used to help patients strengthen
their defense mechanisms, now I have them experience rather than repress
certain patterns and they go away. This same young man, for example,
now force-feeds his depression. [In this context, to "force-feed"
a depression would be to experience it fully instead of trying to get
rid of it by various means.]
A woman patient who had had multiple hospitalizations realized, in the
process of being helped, that she was a psychosomatic cripple. Because of
my
est
training, the seductive-manipulative aspects of her moaning
and complaining became clear to me. When I communicated this to her, she
was able to tell me, "If I face my feelings, I'll die." She had never
gone that far or been that honest before. She became more alive. When
she left the hospital, the staff remarked on how much she had changed.
I see now, also, that there are some patients who don't appreciate and
don't want to experience feelings, who would rather have medication
or electric shock. Even so, I respect them and acknowledge where they
are. And then cut through their games.
I have sent twelve patients from New Orleans to
est
trainings
in New York and San Francisco. I've done that because it works, because
it's therapeutic, regardless of their disclaimers that
est
is not
therapy. The training encourages people to work through and experience
their barriers and get out of the cognitive mind which dominates so much
of our culture.
Out of these twelve patients, three didn't like it -- they thought it
was atrocious, boring, exhausting. All three had had lots of therapy
and were isolated, intellectual people. One week after they were back
in therapy with me each one of them cried for the first time In our
work together. They got in touch with feelings they had been avoiding
for years. Two out of three now acknowledge that they got a lot from
the training. The third still denies it was helpful; he, I observed,
got the most from it. The other nine sound even more enthusiastic than
I do. I find, incidentally, that I communicate better with
est
graduates than with other people.
There is currently some resistance to
est
from other psychiatrists
in New Orleans. They have heard about it from me and are curious. A
colleague who does a group at a hospital where I have individual patients
is amazed at the change in my patients, how they are breaking through
their barriers. A couple of others, though, are antagonistic because
they think Werner is a con artist, or because of his name change.*
* See Chapter 8 for discussion of this.It's scary for therapists. They have to feel uncomfortable about something
that threatens all their years of training. I, too, was scared that last
day of the training. I wondered how I could continue all the stuff I had
learned when it didn't mean anything.
I am convinced
est
offers true transformation. And in an amazingly
short period of time.
6
est
Goes to Prison
"I got that what happened to me ain't no"I'm here for bank robbery. It doesn't take too much smarts to walk
mistake. I planned it that way."
-- A prisoner in Lompoc's maximum security section
into a bank and tell them to hand over the money. I kick myself in
the ass every time I think about it. I know I got more potential and
qualifications than to do something like that. But I was impatient.
I wanted it then.
est
brought me a lot of realizations and I
guess you could call it waking up."
I was in the office of the psychologist of the Federal Correctional
Institution at Lompoc, California, listening to one of the thirteen
convicts who would be talking to me about
est
.
I was there to see for myself what
est
had done for prisoners;
almost every story about Werner Erhard and
est
had mentioned the
prison training. I was there also for a colleague of mine, a psychiatrist
who is head of psychiatric services for the city of Philadelphia. I
would report to him what I had experienced so that he could consider
the value of bringing the training into the city's prison system.
Because of what I
got
from the training about agreements, I was
experiencing some guilt. Neither before nor during my visit did I divulge
that I was writing this book. The letter requesting my visit had come from
my colleague and referred only to that aspect of my investigation which
related to his work. (Later I let the people I had met know about the
book. The prison psychologist kidded me for not being up-front. "Didn't
you get that it would have been O.K. to have walked in here and told
the truth?" I didn't then, but I would now.)
The reason I withheld this information was that I wanted to get the
real story rather than a public relations fabrication. I felt that
admitting the full truth about my visit would prevent me from getting
to their truth.
In
est
terms, my
reasons
were irrelevant. Reasons aren't
real; people make them up to justify what they want to do. What mattered
was whether I was willing to take responsibility (and the consequences)
for what I was doing. I was, which meant that I was prepared to incur
the wrath of the authorities, to get tossed out of the prison, to
suffer the pangs of guilt, and to face whatever else might result from
my half-truth. As I now put this into perspective, it occurs to me that
my experience was exactly what the
est
prison training was all
about: taking responsibility for making and breaking agreements.
I flew to Los Angeles and then boarded a Greyhound bus for the four-hour
ride through rolling cowboy country to the federal prison. The next
morning, after I had spent an anxious night at a nearby motel, a curious
cab driver ("No visiting hours on Thursday, ma'am") deposited me before
an enormously high fence topped with three strands of barbed wire and a
fifty-foot-high glass tower, which were a visitor's welcome. The object
of my journey, a huge gray concrete building, loomed before me from
across a vast empty plain.
Feeling small and vulnerable, I waited with my driver for an acknowledgment
of my presence. It came out of the air, as though from nowhere, with a curt
"What do you want?" I identified myself to the faceless voice and after
a short wait was allowed through the wire fence, whereupon I identified
myself again and was admitted to the reception area.
The intimidating security structures, the bars on every window, the gray
tiled corridors -- all reminded me of every prison movie I had ever seen.
It was both awesome and sobering. If the whole thing smacked of a grade-B
jail tale, the climax to my entrance scene was in the best tradition of
Hollywood slapstick. Shaken after my solo walk across the flat, empty
space between the fence and the building, I asked the receptionist what
I could do with my suitcase. He considered the question seriously before
suggesting, apologetically, that it would be best to lock it up. "We
have a lot of thievery around here," he explained, poker-faced!
Dr. Scott Moss, the mental health coordinator and a charming and
knowledgeable man, soon appeared to escort me to the first of my
appointments. I was grateful for his presence, especially as we moved
through the huge, busy corridor where prisoners and staff walked briskly
about their business. It wasn't until after I cleared the third barrier
that the full import of what I was up to hit me: If, in fact, sixty hours
of
est
training could transform some of the rapists, murderers,
burglars, and other criminals who populated Lompoc, what might that mean
for the society at large? Intrigued by the possibilities but skeptical,
I decided to just stick close to Dr. Moss and keep my ears and eyes open.
I had fortunately arrived in time to listen in on a series of interviews
by two students from San Francisco State University who were doing their
masters theses about
est
at Lompoc.
In the initial encounter, a researcher stated that the investigation was
not related to the prison, that the prisoner's name would not be used,
and that he should feel free to be as honest as he wanted since nothing
would be used for or against him. Each was asked the same questions,
which dealt primarily with what he had experienced from the training.
The first, a good-looking young black (all but two of the prisoners I met
were black), grinned self-consciously when asked what he thought of the
training. "Cool, man, cool. And I
got
that what happened to me
ain't no mistake. I planned it that way."
I could barely believe my ears. A ghetto youth assuming full responsibility
for his life instead of blaming it all on bad housing, vitamin deficiencies,
overcrowded schools, a father who had deserted, no money or jobs or love?
It was exactly what I wanted to hear but I mistrusted it. Too glib,
I thought; he's getting off on his performance.
But as the men came and went, I heard the same theme over and over.
Convicts admitting that they had known what they were getting into and
now accepting the consequences.
From another, a young redhead, "When I run up against a brick wall,
I know that's the way I want it."
Another, a tough-looking six-footer: "What I see now is that I used
my own agreements instead of looking out there at the world. I never
bought anyone else's agreements until I got hit over the head, literally,
with a club. The sky was the limit in my life. Oh, hell, I'm not going
to say I'm perfect now but even here I get along a hell of a lot better
than I used to."
Each had come to the training for a different reason. "I took it because
there wasn't anything else to do," a twenty-three-year-old blond who looked
like a college student explained. "But I really roll with the punches now.
Sure I'll be glad when I get out of here [he had three years left on a
five-year sentence]. But right now I'm paying attention to right now."
The words sounded pat to me but the person speaking was totally real.
Later, others were to say essentia]ly the same thing. If Werner had
accomplished nothing else during the training, this kind of acceptance
alone was worth the whole venture. I was told that most prisoners spent
their lives daydreaming about the distant future, looking to the time
when they would be released. By being in the here and now, and by
accepting that "here" meant three sets of barbed wire, guard towers,
and restricted movement, then they had choices. A former dope dealer
summed it up with a Werner quote: "It's much easier to ride the horse
in the direction he's going."
Some of those interviewed hadn't completed the training. "They had
X-rated movies going that weekend" one confessed with a grin. Another,
who felt Werner "could make a person change their mind about love," said
he got tired of sitting. And another left "because I'm partly satisfied
with what I am." The training is heavy stuff, and I could see that an
X-rated movie was an easy distraction.
The most interesting responses were from men who were knowledgeable
about therapeutic and rehabilitation techniques. They had been involved
in counseling or drug abuse programs and/or group therapy, including
Transactional Analysis. Some of these programs they had experienced
before they were imprisoned or in other prisons; others they had pursued
at Lompoc.
A particularly sharp, articulate graduate told us: "I stood up there and
had the most fantastic thought. Everyone looked so . . . transparent. And
I suddenly realized, 'What am I afraid of? Them?' I was sick that I've
walked around afraid this long. I think about that every time I get into
a conversation and our fronts go up and I can feel the fear between us.
I don't take the initiative yet to try and break down that fear and to see
just how far it would go."
Another observed that the people who don't get anything out of
est
are the same people who don't get anything out of counseling or therapy.
"They just don't want to look at themselves."
When the series of brief interviews was over, I met with Burt Kerish,
Lompoc's competent and gracious clinical psychologist for the last
fifteen years. He had been in the first Lompoc training, conducted
personally by Werner (there have been two trainings so far, attended
by 118 prisoners). Eager to share his experience, Burt told me that
he
got
that people both in and out of the prison found him
intimidating. "And I was not aware of it." Among his life changes since
the
est
training: "I find more aliveness in assisting at
est
than playing at the beach, and I enjoy both."
Burt had asked three
est
graduates to meet with me in an informal
setting to discuss the training in more detail. I was excited about
it. One of the three, I was told, had been convicted of rape and bank
robbery. Another was also a bank robber, and the third was a big-time
dope smuggler. We were sitting around Burt's office, informally, with
no bars, guards, or guns -- none of the props I had expected.
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